The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

A General Theory of Oblivion
by José Eduardo Agualusa
translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
Angola



On the eve of Angolan independence, an agoraphobic woman named Ludo bricks herself into her Luandan apartment for 30 years, living off vegetables and the pigeons she lures in with diamonds, burning her furniture and books to stay alive and writing her story on the apartment’s walls.

Almost as if we’re eavesdropping, the history of Angola unfolds through the stories of those she sees from her window.

-In a line that was surely included to bait book reviewers, one of the novel’s characters declares: “A man with a good story is practically a king.” If this is true, then Agualusa can count himself among the continent’s new royals. ~Angel Gurria-Quintana in The Financial Times

-Fragmented and densely layered, Oblivion unfolds within the possibility — and the tension — inherent between writing and identity, text and meaning, story and life. ~Dustin Illingworth in The Quarterly Conversation

After making the MBI shorlist, Agualusa makes the BTBA shortlist as well. I have this one and hope to get to it soon . . .

It's a pretty light easy read as books found on these lists go. A good one if you're short on time. Not that there isn't some grimness, it's about tough lives in a tough country. But that US cover is misleading in its grey serious weightiness.

Antonomasia wrote: "It's a pretty light easy read as books found on these lists go. A good one if you're short on time. Not that there isn't some grimness, it's about tough lives in a tough country. But that US cover ..."

One thing I love about the novel is its portrayal of war from such an idiosyncratic and urban and civilian point of view. The novel presents the randomness of war in such a unique way--here is a character who is in the middle of it, yet she is literally insulated from events and unnoticed by everyone else and unaffected by their agendas. It made me imagine that even in war zones of seeming utter destruction there will be pockets where the destruction passes over.

I did enjoy this a lot, albeit I feel a bit sorry that Tram 83 missed out twice and this is shortlisted twice.

It originated out of a movie script that was never completed, and it has that air to it, especially the bizarre scene where all the characters end up in the same place at the same time, hence the lightness vs. some other novels. But I agree with poingu that I rather liked the fact that the outside civil war and politics were merely background noise.

For an alternative perspective on the novel, my identical twin brother (yes, really) who, not surprisingly, normally has similar views to me read the novel at my recommendation. His take:

"A book which completely fails to live up to its premise, in fact does not even try to do so, i.e. the contrast between Ludo's isolation and unchanged situation and a country and city torn between civil war and rapid transformation. We get no sense of Ludo's isolation other than very short scenes of her hunting pigeons or burning furniture for fuel and frequent snatches of poetry that she supposedly writes on the wall (and which simply read like another book). Instead the author ranges, almost George Martin style, around a large and confusing list of characters - and the author then simply has all of them arrive at once (and turn out to be completely interrelated) just as Ludo leaves her apartment for the first time."

(He's not a Goodreader but this would have been 2 stars at best)